Goshal Condemns Western Critics For Failure to Understand Africa

The West should "bend over backwards" to understand the newly-independent African states before criticizing them, Kumar Goshal, foreign affairs editor of the National Guardian, told a Liberal Union audience yesterday.

Goshal, who recently interviewed leaders of sub-Saharan Africa, repeatedly insisted that though nations like Ghana have just attained independence, the U.S. wrongly expects them to behave with the political sophistication that took America 200 years to develop.

"That is a great compliment to us," Goshal said Kwame Nkrumah told him. "If the West thinks we are capable of doing that, they should ask us to come and rule them."

If the United States will overlook our mistakes, the Ghana president added, Ghana will forget the indignities heaped upon her in the past. "In the making of American wealth are the sufferings of my ancestors," he explained; "the healthiest slaves were used like stallions for breeding purposes."

"Do you think there is enough wealth in the United States to compensate for this inhumanity?" Nkrumah charged. For his reason Nkrumah finds the term "foreign aid" galling, Goshal explained. Nkrumah prefers to think of grants as "reparations."

Defending his policy of jailing leaders of the opposition United party, Nkrumah told Goshal that United party members of parliament, who won 5 per cent of the seats in national elections, are not imprisoned.

Opposition To Socialism

Opposition leaders advocate an end to socialistic planning and large industrialization projects like the Volta River dam, Goshal reported. Instead, they support foreign investment and production of consumers' goods to build up Ghana's economy.

"How do we know that these agitators are not paid by British or American investors looking for a profit?" Nkrumah complained to Goshal. He feels, Goshal explained, that Ghana cannot afford the luxury of an investigation service like the FBI to keep tabs on his opposition. Therefore, when Nkrumah believes the opposition jeopardizes his programs, they are made "unavailable for speaking."